


Dream On

by Yuki1014o



Series: gold on the water (op-va crossover) [4]
Category: One Piece, ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Genre: Bounty Hunter!Mista, Crossover, Gen, Mink!Mista, Pirate!Narancia, Reincarnation, Skypiean!Narania, but it wasn't that much I don't think?, jojo character study, one piece world building, there's one scene that could be 'graphic violence'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuki1014o/pseuds/Yuki1014o
Summary: “Oh little goat,”  Sister Lily sighs, voice kind of breathy, “What’ve we told you about the edge of the island?”Narancia frowns, and buries himself deeper in her hold. “Not til I’m six.”“Not until we say so,” Lily corrects. “Even adults fall, don’t you know? Our wings aren’t meant for flying.”//Mista just wants to retire, Narancia wants to fly. The road is rocky, the waves are rough, but they'll find their way.
Series: gold on the water (op-va crossover) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1700272
Comments: 38
Kudos: 75





	1. it went by, like dusk to dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work titles and chapter titles, of course, being in reference to "Dream On" by aerosmith

There are some things in the world that are kind of weird.

See, Narancia may not be all that old, hasn’t even grown his wings yet, not really, but he _does_ know _some_ stuff. Instinct—just, stuff he knows and isn’t quite sure why. Like, people can’t walk on clouds. Except—

—except he can and has and is. It’s soft as feathers and sinks just a little beneath his feet.

Another thing he know is true: people don’t just have wings. Only angels have wings. Except that’s wrong too, because the only people who don’t have wings are the ones who haven't grown them yet.

(His first word was Narancia, it’s where his name comes from. His second word was _angel_ , when he pointed at the sisters and the wings on their backs and said _angel, angel angel angel_ , and they laughed and said _no no, baby_. _We’re Birkan_.)

So really, most of what Narancia knows is wrong.

Narancia sighs, dangles his legs over the edge and into the white-white sea and feels the clouds lick against his toes, clot into droplets on his skin. Hums a tune that’s nothing at all like the drum beat in the square or the strings played in the temple. It’s a beat and a melody with words he doesn't know and can’t figure out.

“Narancia,” a voice comes from behind him, and Narancia startles _bad_. He snaps around and scrambles to his feet but his foot catches on _nothing_ , slips right through the murky white and _oh_ , the cloud isn’t dense there.

So his feet catch on nothing and the cloud shifts in his grip and—

and a hand clasps tight around his wrists and pulls him back onto the bank. Sister Lily scoops him up right into her arms, grip firm around him. “Oh little goat,” Lily sighs, voice kind of breathy, “What’ve we told you about the edge of the island?”

Narancia frowns, and buries himself deeper in her hold. “Not til I’m six.”

“Not until we _say_ so,” Lily corrects. “Even adults fall, don’t you know? Our wings aren’t meant for flying.”

Narancia pauses at that. Looks up at the Sister’s chin, face, cheeks, and she peers right down and him held against her chest and smiles a bit. “Nuh-uh,” Narancia tells her, voice all self-assured and certain because he _knows_ this, “I’m gonna fly.”

“ _Baby_ ,” she sighs, running her fingers through his hair, “What would you even want out there?”

Narancia blinks, blinks again. “Dunno. Mom and Dad left for the Blue Sea, right?”

“Oh no no,” Sister Lily says, turning around from the edge and stepping them back towards safer ground. “the Blue Sea’s much too dangerous. Sometimes you can't see the sun or the stars. You’d never find your way there.”

(Narancia thinks about that. About a sea blue as the sky and deep as the night, where the sun is blocked and the stars don’t show. Wonders if he could find his way there, even on wings not meant for flying.)

-

When Mista is seven he steps through the garbage, through the rusty nails and splintered wood and washed-up sea-glass, right up into his two-person family’s shack. They live on the beach, with the trash.

At dawn the water is red and gold and almost as pretty as his mother’s eyes. He spends all morning and most of afternoon picking around in the tide pools looking for baby den-den mushi (sometimes, _sometimes_ finding older ones, finding _valuable_ ones.) But sometimes that isn’t enough, sometimes he must crawl along the slippery tangle of seaside rocks to find enough den-den mushi to sell.

Sometimes he slips and falls and cuts himself on sharp edges, sometimes barnacles slice through his skin. Sometimes.

Most times he likes it, most times it’s fun and challenging. The shells are pretty and the air is clean. The waves splash and the breeze blows. Most times it’s nice.

He likes living on the beach; he doesn’t like that they _have_ to live on the beach.

Right now it isn’t dawn, isn’t morning, isn’t even sunset. It’s twilight now, the sun has sunk beneath the water; the horizon is gold but the sky is glittering with stars. The heavens are split half-and-half, almost as mismatching as his heritage.

The few coins in his trouser pockets are much too light for comfort. His face aches, itches, stings with split skin and bloody bruises. His ears hang limp against the sides of his head. One of them is nicked. His pelt (not fur, not really, it’s too short, clings too closely too his skin) is matted with blood.

Mista is an easygoing guy, really. Sure he’s quick to anger, but he’s quick to forgive, and even quicker to forget.

But—

But that man called his mother a filthy beast and _took his mother’s medicine_ and Mista will take insults to himself (dog, half-breed, mutt) but not to his mother.

The door to their shack opens with no grace. Mista’s sandals grit on the sandy floorboards.   
  
“Mama,” he says, calling out, and she comes out from the kitchen.

“Pup—” she starts, but her sentence breaks and her eyes fly wide and she gasps softly. Her rabbit ears twitch. “Oh _darling_ ,” she breathes, leaning down and laying kisses against the sluggishly bleeding cuts on his face. “What did they _do_ to you?”

He steps back, pushes her hand aside, and shakes his head. “Mama I’m _fine_ , it was just a little fight, okay? Please don’t worry—besides I have something more important to tell you.”

“I—okay,” she says, voice low and aching and for a moment, just a moment, Mista _hates_. Hates humans and their ignorance and the World Government with it’s blind eyes and everything in the whole world that’s made his mother ache like this. But—

but Mista isn’t one for hate, really. It’s tiresome and troubling and gets nothing done. And every injustice Mista has suffered has been in the name of hate, and he won’t be like that. He won’t be. He has better things to do.

“I’m changed my name today,” Mista tells her, honestly. Surprise flickers over her face, then confusion. He barrels on. “I’m _Mista_ now.”

“...Oh?” She asks, brows knitting together. “Why? Is that a name?”

Mista shakes his head. “It’s a word,” he says. “It means _mixed_.”

It’s one of those things Mista just knows, one of those things he doesn't bother to question how he knows. (He’ll never find the answer, so what’s the point? He just knows, maybe it’s fate, maybe God wants him to know.)

(Like how to handle a gun, even though he’s never held one. How to pull the trigger with steady hands, how to knock one out of someone’s hold and take it himself. He—could’ve killed that man today, he knows. Could’ve stolen the gun and pulled the trigger but—

but he has better things than hate. Better things than violence and bloodshed. Those things...they are familiar in a way he can’t quite grasp, they’re familiar and comfortable but he doesn't _want_ them, not really. Doesn't love them like he loves the seashore and the breeze and a good meal in the afternoon sun.)

“Mixed,” his mother repeats voice sounding strange, a little shaky, a little wet. “What language is that?”

“Italian,” Mista answers, words coming easily.

“...Okay,” she says, eventually, “why...why that?”

She doesn’t question the language. There are many, many dialects all over the four blues, all over the Grand Line. There are as many languages as islands, as many dialects as stars.

“I’m Mista,” Mista answers, words tasting sweet on his tongue, “I’m _Mista_. That’s me.”

He’s Mista. Mista like lazy afternoons by a harbor he’s never seen, Mista like _Mista, where have you been?_ And Mista like _mixed_ , like the blood of a human and a mink. _Mixed_ ; a dog’s nose on a human’s flat face, golden pelt that’s soft as dandelion tufts, nails that are sharp and long and sturdy, but aren’t claws, not exactly.

He’s Mista, from a mink mother and a human father. He’s Mista, with golden pelt and drooping ears, with sharp canine teeth and a jaw that doesn’t quite match, a half mink, a _Golden Retriever._

He is mixed and _proud_ to be mixed because Mista is many things but he isn’t ashamed, isn’t self-conscious, won’t ever bow down. He doesn't have a lot of things (doesn't need, doesn’t _want_ a lot of things) but he has his pride and he’ll always stand proud.

“Okay,” his mother says, and smiles softly, “Mista.”

-

Narancia’s wings fully grow in when he’s eight. The largest feathers slot into place along the edges of his wings. The feathers blend into each other, take a gold tint in the morning with the bright sun catching on the ridges of his feathers. In night, under the moon and the starts they reflect bright and silver.

They are fragile, breakable, _pretty_ —but while the bones are mostly hollow, they’re also thick and heavy. Even though his wings are large—the largest they’ll ever be, they’re done growing now—they aren’t large _enough_. Even though his largest feathers are stiff and straight they aren’t _flight_ feathers.

Narancia’s wings aren’t made for flying.

He tries not to think about this.

He does, after all, have other things to do. And he’s _trying_ , he _is_ , but—

“Narancia,” Sister Quen says, voice gentle, “are you focusing?”

“Um,” Narancia says, and curls into himself, just a little, “yeah.”

But there are chalk doodles on the edge of his slate and there are numbers written down but they’re scribbled over and there’s a notable lack of answers.

“Goatling,” Sister Quen says, brushing her fingers over the chalk, “it’s only two digit multiplication—what are you having trouble with? Here, I can help you.”

He’s _trying_ , really. But the numbers swim and bleed into each other, and one digit multiplication is kind of easy unless it’s seven or eight or nine but _t_ _w_ _o digits?_ It’s so much to keep track of and he always forgets and always gets the wrong number and how the _hell_ is he supposed to multiply such big numbers together? It doesn’t make sense and it never makes sense and the more he thinks about it the more agitated he gets and it’s so _stupid—_ and the sisters are so disappointed in him.

(What if he isn’t worth it? What if they think he isn’t worth it? His parents left him for the Blue Sea and he’s always been abandoned so really, why shouldn't they?)

“I—don’t get it,” he ends up saying, voice edged with frustration. “It doesn't make sense!”

“Hush hush,” she says, brushing away his marks and picking up the chalk. “You’ll see.”

She walks him through the problem and he—he gets it, when she does that. He gets the steps she takes, but he doesn't know why she takes them, and he sees the result, and the result makes sense. So she leaves with a smile. But when he tries to apply it to another problem it doesn't work and the numbers tangle. So it’s really just stupid, in the end.

The drums beat, the lyre sounds, and it signals the end of arithmetic and the start of praying. (Pray when the sun rises, when the sun sets, when it reaches it’s peak in the sky. Narancia never knows what to pray for.)

He leaves the chalk and the slate by the temple’s foot. The clouds are thick and soft beneath his feet. He settles himself in the empty spot beside Enel. It’s—kind of uncomfortable, makes him antsy. Enel is serious and tight strung, is the temple’s top student, is far beyond multiplying double digits and into things Narancia doesn't understand at all. (How the wind works, how to harness it, energy and light and physics and engineering.)

Enel spares him a glance, sneers. Anger flares beneath Narancia’s skin, licks across his face. Enel’s an arrogant asshole bastard who’s— _smarter than you_ , a little nook of Narancia’s brain says, _he spends every hour studying or_ _worshiping._ _What about you?_

Enel’s looking down on him, though, that _asshole—_ Narancia doesn't get things but he isn’t _stupid—_

But then the lyre chimes, and Enel smooths his expression, closes his eyes, folds his wings down, and kneels on the temple steps. One half beat and Narancia follows suit.

He never knows what to pray about.

 _Hey uh_ , he ends up thinking, _sorry for bothering you. Fairy vearth is probably uh, nice. I hope. If my wings we meant for flying could I go up there? Maybe? For a long time I thought I’d be able to fly with wings—just, thought, y’know? Felt like my soul was made with them, made to fly, and my body only had to catch up. Guess that didn’t happen though._

He isn’t really sure what to say after that. He doesn't end up saying anything at all. The lyre sounds again and then it’s break. Then it’s time for anything at all. Narancia doesn't go back to studying.

He goes to the edge of the island, because of course he does. He sits himself where he’s sure the clouds won’t give beneath him, and feels water droplets form around his toes.

The sun it setting beautifully on the horizon, turning all of the White Sea into an ocean of colors, tilting the droplets hues of crimson and shades of pink and orange and purple. The cloud beneath his fingertips is dyed a bright shade of orange.

It’s—really pretty.

Breeze blows gently through the curls of his hair. It tickles against his feathers.

Sometimes, like this, on the edge of the sky, with the bright sun dipping below the clouds and his wings fluttering flightless in the wind—sometimes Narancia wonders if he’s already died.

Sometimes he can feel the blood trickling over his skin, the pain in his abdomen, can imagine his thoughts muddying down to not much at all, can imagine shifting out of his body, the whole world skewing by a few degrees. The fragrance of clematis flowers and vines along his skin.

And he thinks of the lyres singing melodies from the temple and the clouds cradling around his fingers and his flightless wings (can’t fly when you’re _dead—_ ) and _wonders_.

(What’s the point of wings-not-made-for-flying if he’s still _alive?_ )

-

Mista’s island is a marine-base island. That has generally served Mista well. The previous Captain had been a retired Grand Line veteran, which means Mista was generally one of the least strange things she’d ever seen. She never went out of her way to defend him, not really, but under her command the marine base accepted his den-den mushi gatherings and paid him fair for them. (She even clapped him on the back when he found a horned den-den mushi! She treated him to _ice cream!_ )

So basically, in the scheme of things, Mista’s situation was good. South Blue is the third most tolerant sea, just behind East, much behind the Grand Line, but better than West and _much_ better than North. His island was small and headed by a Grand Line veteran.

Sure, they’ve always had to live on the beach, sure it’s still dangerous to walk into a bar or into an alley or approach any kids his age. Yes the other kids usually throw stones and no parent here would ever, _ever_ assume Mista as anything but ill-meaning, _however_. Stores still accept his money, he only really ever comes home bleeding if he chooses to engage a fight; this much better than many other fare.

So really, he’s been kinda lucky. Fate threw him a good one, God gave them a nice start.

This changes.

The new Marine Captain is a South Blue native, a disgraced noble’s son. It shows.

On day one, Mista gets spit in the face and they refuse to buy his snails. (The World Government _always_ needs more snails, what the hell? 100 beri for a baby den-den mushi, 5,000 for a mid-age mushi, 20,000 for an old mushi, 50,000 for a horned mushi, 250,000,000 for a black mushi, 500,000,000 for a white mushi and so on so on… Many poor families make their entire livelihood off of turning in bounties for live den den mushi. _Mista’s_ family survives on catching them.)

The second day—the second day is something else entirely.

Mista has good nose, he has a _dog’s_ nose. So when the wind shifts—when the wind shifts he _smells_ it. Thick and heavy and metallic; gunpowder and blood and _his mother’s scent_. Mista jerks his head around, the movement throws him off balance and his footing slips on the sharp breach side rocks but that doesn't _matter_.

He scrambles off the rocks, shirt snagging on an edge and ripping. He pays it no mind. The sand makes running so much _slower_. The sun is high, beats down on his back, it’s much too hot. He feels like fainting, too little breath. It’s a summer island, not a good place to have pelt.

His home comes into view. The scent of iron is thick now, intermingled with ( _indistinguishable from_ ) Mother’s scent. There are marines there. Two outside the door, another, presumably, in the house.

Mista thins his lips, hands twitching towards his pants before he remembers he _has no weapon_ , of course he doesn't—so instead he bares his teeth into a snarl and kicks the first marine’s legs out from under him. The first marine’s skull hit’s against a rock with an ugly crack. The second marine yelps. “You—” but she goes down too.

There’s the crack of splintering wood when the door hits open. And—oh, oh.

The new base commander is there, tall and sneering, and looking at him with disdain. And _Mother is on the floor_.

Mother is on the floor.

Mista has shot enough people—(but he hasn’t, he _hasn’t_ , why has the world given him this knowledge, these images, these phantom memories? Where did he misstep? Why is this always, _always_ , his fate?)—to know the look of a corpse.

“You know,” the Captain says, “the starting bid for a mink is seven hundred thousand. I killed her, but you...”

There’s lava in his pores, in his ears, rushing through his veins. Hot and burning and _angry_ , and Mista never wanted to to pick up a gun or a knife again. But Mother’s blood is stark on the marine’s white coat, and there’s no rhyme to this, no reason for this slaughter, nothing that matters, and the marine has three guns: one in his hand, two on his belt.

Mista’s lips crease into a frown, and he goes very, very silent. Very still. This is second to all his natures. (He’s a dog mink after all; born a predator. And besides that, this is—familiar. It’s familiar. He’s a gunslinger down to his bones, he knows it.)

One beat and—

Mista lunges forward, knocking the gun from the man’s hand and catching it. He pushes forward, kicks at the man’s knees and while it doesn’t knock him down (Mista is too _small—_ ) it down send him off balance. Mista uses that opportunity to throw him full weight down on the man, falling them both to the floor. The marine’s head hits up against the face of the wall.

“Mutt—!” The man begins, but Mista kneels him in the crotch and uses that to shove his gun in the marine’s throat.

The marine goes very, very still. Just for a moment, just for half a beat. (What, he wonder, vaguely, must he be thinking about? What is this bastard thinking about? Does it matter? It—) The moment ends, the marine jolts beneath Mista’s fingers and from the corner of his eyes Mista registers a fist aiming at his skull.

Mista presses down. The gun kind of—spasms in his hand. The shot is loud, is ear-piecing, even as it’s muffled by the flesh it’s gone into. And something breaks, and hits wet against the wall, and beneath him the man goes limp.

The marine’s blood pools on the floor, sloshes and mixes into Mother’s blood. Bits of skull are embedded into the wood, chunks of fleshy pink brain tissue cling to the boards.

Nausea comes sour and acidic in the back of his throat. His hands don’t shake. It doesn't really feel like a victory, it isn’t really a victory. He came out alive from a two person death match, he spilled the blood of a shitty racist man who killed his mother. (How, Mista wonders, just for a moment, did this man treat his own family? His friends? Strangers on the street who he recognized as human?) He was scum, was a racist of North-Blue caliber, deserved to pay for his actions, but—

Mista hadn’t wanted to kill.

He thinks about this when he takes two of the marine’s gun’s, when he he buries Mother’s body. Thinks about it when noon turns to the burnt light of sundown, when sundown turns to twilight and twilight to night. Thinks about it when he sneaks into the harbor and finds himself a small, one-man sailboat.

 _I don’t want to kill_ , he thinks, because he’s been there and done that (when? Where? _Why?_ ) _I don’t want to kill_ , he’s doesn't really know what he _does_ , want, though. He might’ve known once, maybe. But somewhere along the way he lost it.

(He’ll go looking.)

So, with the full moon above him, Mista catches the wind.

-

There’s a fruit washed up on the cloud’s edge. It’s buried a little bit, beneath layers of lighter, whisper, more foggy pieces of cloud. It’s...kind of weird.

Screw that. It’s fucking weird.

It’s bright neon orange and patterned with swirls and grown into the shape of a dragon fruit. And Narancia’s no fruit expert, really, but he’s pretty sure fruit aren’t supposed to grow like that. Fruit is the main diet of sky islands—they’re mostly water, and there’s plenty of _that_. So fruit it is.

Which is really to say, Narancia’s pretty damn sure he knows what a fruit looks like.

He squints at the swirly fruit suspiciously. Presses down, just a bit. It gives way—but it doesn't seem to leave a bruise. The flesh kind of just...pops back into place. _Weird_.

For just a moment, he contemplates eating it, but—there’s a voice in the back of his head, _NARANCIA, DON’T—you IDIOT! Who the fuck goes around eating suspicious God-knows-what from the beach! It’s literally BRIGHT ORANGE! Is that not enough of a WARNING!?_ Narancia winces, makes sense, makes sense. Whoever the fuck that voice is supposed to be kind of has a point.

(The voice has been with him for as long as he can remember. It shows up when he’s doing—or thinking of doing—something stupid. Narancia calls it ‘the voice’ because it sure as hell isn’t Narancia'svoice. It also doesn't belong to anyone on Birka.

Sometimes, when he tries to place who it might’ve once belonged too—sometimes he sees back-alleys and blue waters, see’s switchblades and sheets of math problems. Sees—pudding? Strange, really. It’s all very confusing.)

So, Narancia doesn’t eat it. He leaves it on his spot by the white sea and goes back to life as usual.

Except—it isn’t really life as usual. A day later and Enel starts going actually _insane_. Like. _Actually_. Enel smiles creepily and _misses a prayer_ , (what the hell? Enel’s a stuck-up asshole but he’s as dedicated to the faith as any good priest, and he’s more studious than the whole of Birka combined.) Things really come to a head when Enel stands on the steps of the temple and says, face straight, “I am God.”

Narancia blinks. “Enel, what the fuck?”

“I am God,” Enel repeats.

“Uh,” Narancia says, and backs away, just a bit. “You uh, have a fever? Or something?”

A smirk twists on Enel’s lips. “I,” he says, again, sticking his nose up at the rest of them, “am _God_.” And then something cracks and hums and electricity, bright and blinding, runs it’s way up Enel’s arms, between his fingers.

Huh.

The next few hours happen in a blur. Some of the priests accept Enel as some kind of God reincarnated. Most of them do not. The populace takes sides. Narancia is pretty sure Enel...well. He isn’t actually sure. He just knows that that asshole sure as hell isn’t God.

Then—then electricity hums though the air, raises the hairs on his skin. It keeps building and building and building and—oh, oh _no_. No no no no no no.

When he looks up there’s a ball of electricity, tightly bound lighting held together and _building_.

Narancia runs to the edge of the island, where solid clouds fades into the White White Sea. He digs through the cloud, blows away some fog and—the fruit is still there. The fruit showed up and the day after Enel goes all weird. _Suspicious_.

Maybe—maybe there wasn’t just one fruit. Maybe there were two. Maybe Enel ate the other one and maybe if Narancia eats this one—

He glances at the sky.

Maybe if he eats it, he can stop _that_. Or maybe he’ll just die. But he’ll die either way. So—

Narancia bites.

It’s—disgusting. It the most disgusting thing he’s ever tasted. And—

He can feel them on his back, can feel it beneath his skin. He is a _bird_ , like Enel is lighting. He knows, all of a sudden, down to his bones, that there are feathers dormant beneath his skin, wings folded down into his bones, talons tucked into his toes. He’s Birkan, with wings-not-meant-for-flying, he is a bird with—

Narancia _wills_ , wills his body to reconfigure to it’s new form. He is—a parrot. Large orange feathers sprout from his arms—wings, now. His feet reconfigure into talons. His hair becomes lighter, less soft, turns into feathers. _Halfway_ , some part of him says, _you can go further, you can turn all the way_.

But Narancia doesn't focus on that. Because becoming a bird won’t let him fight Enel. Nothing he has will let him stop that damned ball of _lightning_.

There’s nothing he can _do—_

The static picks up, the lighting begins to compress, the wind picks up and catches Narancia’s new wings.

(The wind carries him away, in the end. )

-

The memories come in with time.

It’s just images, at first. Little bits here and there. Food that doesn’t exist, places with so much land that the land is like an ocean. People, too, so many people. People Mista remembers fondly, even though he hardly remembers anything at all. He’s made of missing pieces.

It bothers him for a while.

Mista’s bounty is printed a week after he makes his leave. Three days later, he makes his second kill. A month after that, he turns in his first bounty. He has to do it with a dark cloak and gloved hands. No use turning in bounties if he’s recognized as a bounty himself, after all.

His missing pieces continue to ache for another year.

(It’s so, so _stressful_.)

There are some things he can’t change, he reminds himself. His birth, his soul, his past life. What’s done is done—if fate wants to give him more memories then...then that’s that.

He lives with it. He figures things out. He’s _figuring_ things out.

Mista sighs. Wrinkles his nose a little. He tries to make his bounty collections clean, he _does_ , but sometimes they just aren’t. Blood is splattered onto his pants (tiger print, skin-tight. _Stylish_. Some things he can change, some things he cannot, His _impeccable_ fashion is one of them.) and his boots are soaked with it. He thinks he might’ve even got some bloody fingerprints onto his precious, _custom-made_ , hat.

Cutting off the head is always the worst part. It’s bloody and messy and _gross_ , and even in his last life (worse life? Better life? Better, probably.) He never had to do something this gruesome.

Then again, in his last life he killed innocents. Killed gang members that were probably just as unfortunate as he was. Killed people who couldn’t may their dues—probably orphaned a lot of kids.

In this life he does _not_ kill innocents.

So, really.

He wonders, vaguely as he stuff the head in a bag and heads back to his sailboat, if twelve is too young to retire. It’s not that he’s a pacifist, he’s _definitely_ not a pacifist. He’s initiated and _enjoyed_ too many fistfights to be any kind of pacifist, but he never wanted to be a bounty hunter just as he never wanted to be in a gang.

And yeah Mista likes following the wind, likes going to places all over the Grand Line, likes the freedom of it all. But—

But only sometimes.

(He’ll need to do something about it.)

-

Narancia flies as a parrot, lets the wings blow through his feathers, let’s it carry him over the endless expanse of the Blue Sea. He squints his eyes, the sun is disappearing beneath the horizon. There’s an island in the distance. It’ll be his third island of the day.

It’s a summer island, uninhabited and tropical. There’s a galleon anchored on the sand, flying a pirate’s flag. _Nice_. Fruits are sweet and all but _bread?_ Bread is delicious.

Narancia makes a sharp turn towards the ship. Grins a little, the crew, up close, is _loud_. It’s much more comfortable than wind and sky and crashing waves. Much more familiar.

He spreads out his wins, angles his body to lose momentum, reaches out with his legs and—curls his talons around the captain's head. Gently, of course. _Gently_ , kind of.

The captain screeches. “Benn! Benn get it _off_ of me! It—” Narancia snickers, although it comes out as a laughing trill. “ _Benn_.”

“I dunno Captain,” A silver haired pirate says, tilting his head. “It doesn't look very malicious.”

“But _Benn_ ,” the captain whines, “it has _claws_.” Narancia _cackles_. He hasn’t even drawn blood, which, really, he should _absolutely_ be praised for because his talons are _sharp_.

Benn nods very seriously. “Red-Haired Shanks, defeated by a parrot, Big News would have a field day with that, surely.” He pauses, just a moment, slides is gaze to Narancia. “Provided, of course, that it _is_ a parrot.”

Narancia startles, it’s been—three years, probably, since he fell to the Blue Sea. In that time no one has suspected him of being anything but a parrot. He cocks his head. “Is a parrot,” he croaks, (it’s so _weird_ to speak as a parrot.)

Benn narrows his eyes. “Captain that isn’t a parrot.”

“Ugh,” the captain—Shanks—says. “Get off my head.”

Narancia curls his talons around chunks of Shank’s hair. “Don’t wanna.”

Then—then there’s a sudden hand on the back of his neck and another around his legs and he’s _pulled_. Oh, fuck that. He clutches the hair tighter.

“Ah—wait wait wait,” Shanks says, shaking his head, which makes the whole thing stupidly dizzying and kind of nauseating. “Benn they have my _hair—BENN!_ ”

Benn’s hand holds firmly around Narancia’s frantically beating wings, not even faltering as Narancia digs his talons (for real, this time) into Benn’s arm. A few tangles of red hair fall to the ground.

The pirate sighs, long and suffering. “Give it up.”

Benn’s arms are a cage, a steel trap. There is no give, no escape. It’s suffocating and uncomfortable and also this isn’t fair at all cause Narancia wasn’t _even_ digging his talons in that hard.

Narancia folds his feathers back into skin, shifts all his bones back into their proper places. The world spins a bit—shrinks in size. Benn’s eyes widen, just a bit, and Narancia grins viciously at the sudden lack of adequate restraints. He stumbles to the ground spreading his Birkan wings out and positioning them a little like a shield.

Of course, there is the small problem that he tumbled right into Shanks’ lap, but really, there nothing he can do about that now.

Shanks blinks down at him. Narancia sticks his tongue out. “Fuck you.”

“Huh,” Shanks says, and trances a finger along Narancia’s white wings. “You’re—from a sky island.”

Narancia snorts. “No duh.”

Shanks jerks his hand away, frowns a little. “Why are you down here?”

And that’s—no. He isn’t talking about _that_. Fuck that. “None of your business,” he says and begins shifting again, half-way, this time, so his arms are wings and his feet are talons.

The air is thick and easy to fly with as he beat his wings away, hovering a few feet above them all. He lands on a barrel a good distance from any of them.

“Wait—” Shanks starts, pauses, furrows his lips. “Do you even know where you are or—who we are? You can stay.”

Narancia shakes his head and swipes a mango and a loaf of bread. “Don’t wanna,” he says, because this crew seems warm and bright and loyal, and Narancia knows that if he stays he won’t leave.

So he rustles his feathers and clutches the food tightly, and leaves when he can.

There’s an old story on Birka, told from parents to children, about a child who strayed to close to the edge. She looked at the ground and saw cloud, and looked at the white sea and saw the same thing. So she played by the beach and ran around, until she ran right off the edge. Her wings were not made for flying, so she plummeted, and nothing caught her.

She couldn’t tell the ground from the sky. Couldn’t tell the sky from the ocean.

But Narancia—Narancia isn’t like her, he know she isn’t stepping on ground. He knows the sky from the ocean, and knows that even as he flies he’s drowning.

He’s drowning, but he won’t take the first hand that offers. His loyalty is too strong, too tethering to give it so easily. And he doesn't know what he wants but—

But he’s looking.

-

“Mista!” comes a voice, jolting him awake from his light nap. He blinks his eyes open, vision a little bleary. May peers down at him, smiling wide. “Mista! Y’wanna know something? Wanna know? It’s super cool, like—actually cool. Please?”

Mista relaxes, pulls himself into a sitting position. Yawns a little. Breeze ruffles through his fur; it’s cool, would be cold, but the sun is warm and gentle. “Hmm?” Mista asks, pauses, blinks, then—“Oh! Yeah, sure. Hit me with it!” He smiles, showing his teeth (sharp and pointed,) she just giggles.

(He made a _great_ choice for an island to settle down on. Cool, but not too cool, warm, but not hot. A spring island through-and-through with such _nice_ people.)

“Uh-huh! Okay, so,” she says, and sits down beside him, careful to avoid crushing the little blooms of crocus and bluebell. “Mama told me there’s a whole like—an entire island on, like _on top of_ , a HUGE,” she draws the sounds out, makes a big gesture with her arms, “elephant! And there’s lots of gold! And actual people living there, but guess what!”

“Um,” Mista says, and this all sounds very familiar, really. There’s a name on the tip of his tongue, a memory just out of reach. He furrows his brows. But—he can’t take too long to answer, cause Mei is obviously itching to tell him. So. “I dunno, tell me?”

Mei nods. “Well,” she says, and grins so wide that the smile could be a sun. “Apparently it’s where people like you come from! Like. Where they live! There are more dog people—but like, not just dog people. _Bunny_ people!”

“Wait,” Mista says, “wait seriously?” but that sounds—right. A place atop an elephant where minks live. At the back of his mind there's a pull, a tug, and—huh. When he was younger...Mother said that her mom came from—“Zou,” Mista says, and Mei startles.

She blinks. “How’d you know? Did Mama already tell you?”

“No,” Mista says, and the tug at the back of his mind gets stronger when he thinks of the place. It’s like—a...homing instinct. Maybe. Do minks have those? Mista’s never met another mink besides Mother. “Nono, I’d heard of it before then. But I forgot! Thanks for bring it up.”

She giggles. “No problem! I also forget stuff. But...”

A beta. The breeze blows. The sun shines, warm and cradling.

Mista tilts his head, shifts a little. “...Yes?”

“Um,” she twists her fingers in her lap and fiddles with a head of lilac, “you’re not... _leaving_ , right?”

“Oh,” Mista says, and the feeling _tugs_. But—Lilac Island has cool breeze and warm sunlight and is made of fruit trees and flower fields. He has a small cabin with grapes growing up the walls and strawberries peppering the ground, an apricot tree stands beside his bedroom window. There’s a town just down the road with farmers market every Saturday. It’s peaceful and prosperous under Whitehead's protection and..he has _friends_ here. People. “Nah. I’m not going. Maybe sometime but not for a while.”

It’s only been half a year sine he moved here. He’s only fifteen—much to young to come _out_ of retirement, really.

-

Narancia is sixteen, almost seventeen, when he meets the Strawhat Pirates.

See, he flies into the sky sometimes, checks the situation with Enel and...

He lands on the railing, talons griping aground the wood, and he sheds most of his form still his arms are still wings, hair still feathers, legs still birdlike. Narancia cocks his head at the crew grins at them, “Yo!”

Strawhat Luffy blinks at him, pauses just a moment before a wide grin splits his face. “Hey!”

A woman with dark hair tilts her head and smiles pleasantly at him. She, along with the rest of the crew, is positioned in a way that would protect her captain. Huh. Guess they think he’s dangerous. Which would be fun, but he isn’t here for that.

“Is there something interesting here, Mister Parrot?”

“Yep!” Narancia grins. “I’m here to thank you guys!”

“Huh?” Luffy says, tilting his head, furrow between his brows. “Why?”

His Birkan wings unfold form his back, white and gleaming in the sun. The black haired woman stares at them, expression hardly changing. “...Those are different wings than the ones we saw on Skypiea.”

Narancia winces a little. “Uh yeah. Enel kinda vaporized my island. And like, all my people. So,” he makes a kinda vague gesture, “thanks for knocking the bastard down. You guys planning to go to the New World?”

“Obviously!” Luffy laughs, “I’m going to be the Pirate King!”

That’s—huh. Kinda ridiculous, really, but Luffy’s got a wide smile and his shoulders don’t slumps and he looks _certain_. The crew doesn't blink at this declaration, don’t wince or look away, they’re...also certain, completely loyal. And loyalty, more than anything in the world, is important.

“Huh,” Narancia says, “cool. Meet me when you get to the New World! I can help you there!” And notices Strawhat eyeing the jerky tucked into his belt, and really, it wouldn’t hurt to share just a tiny bit. So. He offers a strip.

Luffy lights up light the sun, practically _beaming_. “Really?” Luffy says, chewing down on the jerky. “Thanks! What’re you gonna do till then?”

“Eh,” Narancia shifts, feels a little uncomfortable. “follow the wind.”

“Oh,” Luffy’s whole face scrunches up. “That sounds stupid. Join my crew instead!”

Narancia’s mind kind of blanks, just a little. Cause actually what the hell.

Someone coughs. “E-ehh, Luffy—?”

Luffy shakes his head, doesn't falter at all. “Join my crew!”

“Some people like following the wind,” the dark haired woman says, a touch gentle.

“Well _yeah_ ,” Luffy nods, “but _he_ doesn't!”

“Umm,” Narancia starts, but isn’t actually sure how to continue. _Nah, no thanks_ , he wants to say. But Luffy’s grin is bight and the crew’s loyalty is palpable, and the invitation is so blatant, so open. And the Red-Haired pirates were also nice and also loyal but they weren’t made of dreamers, they weren’t _going_ anywhere, not really. And Narancia—

Narancia has gone so long without doing anything he really wants to, without going anywhere. His wings weren’t made for flying. But—he got new wings, got more chances. He wants to _do_ something, wants the world to hear his name, and the red-haired pirates weren’t going anywhere but Strawhat Luffy just said _I’m going to be Pirate King_. And Narancia—

Can’t say no.

“Maybe,” he ends up saying. “See you in the New world.”

-

Mista doesn’t read the newspaper. It’s stressful and kinda stupid and really, he’d rather spend his time tracking down indie movies filmed on a Cameko mushi and projected using a Proko mushi. When he _does_ read the paper it’s only because it’s Monday and Fashion Weekly is out.

He doesn't have to read the paper to hear about Marineford. It’s on everyone’s lips: _the marines lost, ye_ _ah_ _but Whitebeard only won because of Goldie, that Mafia guy from North? Yeah yeah, him. Apparently_ _he had a secret lover in the marines who was torn between his duty and his love and then turned on the marines mid-battle! Eh, the vice admiral? I heard he was billions of beri in debt to the Don! Eh? I heard…_

It’s a big old game of telephone that Mista doesn't even try to follow.

It...doesn’t take long to connect Giovanna to gold hair and green eyes and a life half remembered.

 _Well_ , Mista thinks,he’s been in retirement for three years already, it’s about time to do _something_ , isn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I TOTALLY headcanon that people make whole livelihoods off JUST finding and selling den-den mushi. And that it’s the side-hussle or fulltime job of most lower class (read: very poor) one piece people. And like, kids spend lots of time looking for cool mushi. And of course there’s just. a ton of headcanon for the world in this lol. 
> 
> Ahh, it also kind of turned into a character study. For the record, yeah. I definitely think that the bets life for Mista is a life without guns or the mob. Like?? remember how he was before the mafia? I think he’s a very adaptable person that can carve himself a comfortable space into literally whatever he’s doing, but I think his IDEAL life is a life with no worries doing nothing particularly important. Just. Relaxing. Reading fashion magazines and watching musicals and shit. That’s him, I think.
> 
> Anyhow. if you enjoyed, please don't be shy to leave a comment! And, of course, as usual, constructive criticism is welcome! :)


	2. sing with me, if it's just for today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Narancia, Mista, and a visit with the Whitebeards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Sing with me, sing for the year  
> Sing for the laughter, sing for the tear  
> Sing with me, if it's just for today  
> Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away"  
> -Dream On by Aerosmith

Narancia is in the back room of a library, _studying_. His fingers ache and the pencil hurts against his skin. He clicks his tongue against his teeth to the beat of a melody and tries not to let his mind wander. It's slow going, the symbols mix and switch places and it's _stupid_. Not only is it stupid, it's unfair. Seriously! The librarian (nice, kind, good at teaching,) told him his has not one, but _two_ disorders. Said he has ADHD and dyslexia and says he can learn anyway.

He wants to fly, after all. He wants to _fly_. And he can, he isn't stupid, he won't be stupid, he won't waste this chance, won't throw away this time.

(There are people in the back of his mind. He's— _remembered_ , their names, now. Buccellati would be proud of him, probably. Maybe Fugo would be, too.)

It's boring at first. It's hard to focus and the words swirl and their meaning blur together and really, it's a mess. But—

 _Switch subjects_ , the librarian tells him, voice kind, _every hour, switch, once you're bored or start losing focus then switch._

It helps.

And he keep doing that, switching every hour or so until—

 _A History of Music_ by F. W. Bricker _._ Narancia reads this all the way through with only brief breaks. It takes three days. History is described in beats and melodies, in strings and drums and people writing compositions in back-alley slums.

Then it's _Wind and Water_ by Samantha L. Leafer, which he reads until his mind is full of rolling waves and shifting islands and sailboat. Then _Kings of the High Sea_ by D. B. Quartz, with giant sea creatures and thrilling journeys to uncover the mystery around Sea Kings. And _Thick Lines_ by R. A. Grandeur, about geopolitics and other stuff Narancia never thought he'd find at all interesting, but it _is_. And judging off what he's learned about politics from R. A. Grandeur's works...well. Grandeur's works probably weren't printed by any official publisher. Narancia's pretty sure Grandeur's like, an _actual_ revolutionary.

Then—math.

Math doesn't feel like something real. It's never interesting on it's own. But—

He has to know some math to get most other things, and he learns math like that. He learns math through science and economics and politics. It isn't traditional, how he learns it, but it _works_ , and that's all that really matters, isn't it?

Learning, he finds, can be kind of unexpectedly fun if he's actually interested. If there's actually a good teacher. If he's really _trying_ if he really _wants_ to know what he'd reading.

He spends two years like this.

He leaves only a day after he reads of Luffy's return in the newspaper. After all, he said _I'll help you in the New World_ , and Narancia is many things but he _isn't_ a promise breaker and he won't ever fail his word.

-

"Are you leaving?" Carrot asks him, sounding a bit heartbroken and rubbing her head against his.

Mista doesn't miss a beat. "Yep."

"Aww," her ears twitch and her eyes are a little watery. "Can I come?"

"Er," Mista says, and thinks about where he's going. That could be...kind of dangerous. "Next time I'm back?"

Her whole head perks. "You're coming back!?"

"Of course," Mista answers, and he's almost surprised at how easily it comes. Zou...Zou is not something he needs. But it's something he _wants_. He's content without it, and he has a life elsewhere that he loves more, but Zou is a part of him, a part of his lineage, his culture. Everyone is nice and welcoming and Mista never expected to _like_ it so much. "Maybe even in a few months! I have some stuff to do."

By _stuff_ he means finally, finally hopping onto the Moby Dick and napping until Giorno decides to stop by. Or, if that takes to long, asking the Whitebeards for Giorno's personal den-den mushi number, Kind of dangerous, and definitely stupid, and he can already _see_ Giorno's disappointed stare, but eh. It's his life.

Carrot brightens significantly. "Okay! But take me with you next time!"

Mista laughs and licks her across the face. "Next time!"

-

Narancia has three reasons for landing on the Moby Dick. One: the Strawhats are only just beginning their way into the New World and quite frankly, Narancia has no fucking clue where they are. Two: Fire Fist Ace is Luffy's brother, therefore he probably has a way to find or contact Luffy, so. Three: Goldie is allied with the Whitebeards and _Fugo_ is allied with Goldie, and Fugo, at least from his bounty posters, looks a hell of a lot like the vague images he has of that one angry as fuck voice in the back of his head. So.

So that's how Narancia ends up on the Moby Dick's railing tapping his talons to Bink's Sake. Marco the Phoenix stares at him doubtfully, brows drawn together and lips pressed thin. Narancia keeps croaking out the lyrics. It _is_ a classic after all.

"Oh hey—Marco!" A new pirate joins, approach from behind and grinning wide, "Ace's been—hey, wait." The pirate stares at Narancia. He hoots the lyrics back. "Wha—"

"Shut up Thatch," Marco says.

The guy—Thatch, apparently, holds his hands up in mock-offense. "Marco there's a _parrot—_ "

"There's no way that's a parrot," Marco says, narrowing his eyes at Narancia. He would snicker, really, except that would mess up the _rhythm_. Yonkou crews are so _fun_ to mess with, honestly. "There's no way that isn't a zoan user."

Narancia waits just a beat before he sings out, " _We are pirates sailing through the Sea!_ " Except he's a parrot, so it's hilariously high pitched and off tune and croaky and he makes his voice break halfway through _sea_ , and only just barely manages not to laugh at Marco's wince.

"Oh come _on_ ," Thatch says, and jabs an elbow at Marco's chest. "You're being paranoid."

"That _Parrot_ is the size of a _dog_ ," Marco says, like this is something deeply offending. Which, excuse _him_ , Narancia is a perfectly well sized parrot. "It's _singing_. It's getting less lyrics wrong than our entire crew _combined_."

"Oh come _on_ ," Thatch rolls his eyes and makes a kind of miscellaneous gesture. "There are weirder things than big singing parrots. It's the _New World_. And—oh! ACE," Thatch yells, and from across the deck Fire First Ace lights up. Literally.

"Thatch!" Ace comes over in a swirl of flames, looking absolutely delighted, "You found Marco!"

"Uhhuh," Thatch gestures Ace over, "but look at _this_."

Ace's eyes widen. "It's—"

"Marco thinks it's an undercover zoan user," Thatch says, and Ace snorts. "Exactly. Birds sing, that's like. Literally what they do."Thatch nods to himself like he knows what he's talking about, which, well. All the more fun for Narancia.

"Birds don't sing like _that_ ," Marco hisses.

" _Yohoho_ ," Narancia cackles. He should've come here sooner.

Thatch looks at Narancia again. Tilts his head. "Eh. Good point. Hey—wait, do you think it knows _other_ songs? Like...uhh. Something common. Hmm. My Sweet Sea?"

Narancia changes tune abruptly. Taps his talons once, twice, thrice, counts beats and—" _Past_ _the beach where the sea glass lies,_ _w_ _on't you ever stop your siren cries!_ "

Thatch lights up like Narancia's just hung the stars. "It _can!_ Ace, Ace! Request a song! From your home blue!"

Ace looks at Narancia doubtfully. "Uh," he says, pauses. "I'm um. Not sure if it'd know any of...my childhood music." And oh. That just won't fly. He's been studying like, a _lot_ of music. There's no way. Narancia puffs up his feathers and lifts his head and glares Ace right in the eye. Ace winces. "Jeez. Fine. Bandit's Mountain."

Narancia blinks once, blinks twice. Oh, _oh_. How _fun_. Most music tends towards either lovelorn and longing or upbeat and (usually) vulgar. Bandit's Mountain is _definitely_ the latter.

" _This is our Mountain, Bandit's Mountain. There's a whole sea but this is ours! Land or sea, we'll see! We ain't no ricket-legged pirates, no carpet munchers o_ _r pussy_ _-legged bunchers!_ _So, we say, do pay your way! For this is our mountain, Bandit's Mountain!_ "

"Oh my God," Ace says, eyes wide. "It _knows_ it!"

Marco shifts a little, brows furrowing up. "That was your childhood song?" Which—huh. Narancia didn't think if that but. Yeah. Kinda weird. But really, this is the New World, and there are much stranger things than being raised around Bandit's Mountain, so really.

"Heck yeah," Ace nods, like that is at all normal, which it isn't. Although he isn't actually _sure_ since he _did_ grow up mostly in the sky. Maybe things are very different in the Blue Sea? Maybe? "Anyhow," Ace turns around and kind of _swooshes_ into the air leaving a trail of flickering smoke, "GUYS! EVERYONE! THERE'S A PARROT TAKING MUSIC REQUESTS!"

Narancia is _delighted_ , the pirates are in awe, and Marco looks very done with everything.

Three hours later, from the lookout, comes cry of, _"_ _ONE BULLET MISTA!_ _"_

-

Mista wishes he could go places without some big fuss, really. Seriously, he's been retired for like, literally _half a decade_. Shouldn't people not recognize him? He hasn't appeared in the papers at _all_ except for vague speculation on his whereabouts.

 _Really_ , Mista thinks, holding steady to the mast of his one person sailboat, _isn't this a bit much_?

There's a crowd of pirates crowded against the railing of the Moby Dick. Sixth Division Commander Izo has a gun pointed at his forehead. What bullshit is this?

"Don't move!" Izo shouts voice carrying sharp through the air.

Mista rolls his eyes. "I uh. Come in peace." But apparently he isn't loud enough. Talking across a stretch of wind and waves is so inconvenient. Ugh. Mista stretches out his observation Haki, brushes it against Izo's tightly coiled will and tries his hardest to convey harmless intent. Izo stills, falters, for just a half-moment, and in that time—

Mista leaps. His boots thud against the floor as he pulls himself over the railing and raises his hands high above his head. "Jesus," Mista swears, eyeing the ridiculous amount of weapons pointed at him. "Guy can't just stop in for a ride?"

Marco the Phoenix is next to arrive. "One Bullet Mista," Marco says, eyes sharp and voice flat It'd probably be intimidating if there weren't a large parrot squawking indignantly in the pirate's arms. "What are you doing here?"

"Well," Mista starts, but the parrot stops squawking abruptly and stares at Mista. Hard. Which is—pretty creepy, actually. What the hell? And even _weirder_ is that somehow the parrot feels a little—familiar? Maybe? With it's bright purple eyes and neon orange feathers.

"I repeat," Marco says, tone flat and dead in a way that Mista interprets as _fuck my life I need coffee goddammit why_.

"Uh," Mista rips his eyes away from the parrot. "Just stopping in, y'know?"

" _Why_."

 _To find Giorno's whereabouts_ would probably get him shot and _Giorno was my pre-reincarnation boss_ seems like something he'd say if he were really, really drunk, so Mista settles for: "Seems like a good place for napping." Which is neither convincing nor entirely untrue.

Mista flops down on the deck, closes his eyes, and decides to sleep. There's silence for all of ten seconds before all the pirates around him, in sync, like a chorus, yell, "DON'T SLEEP AT A TIME LIKE THIS!"

Mista peeks an eye open. "It's a very nice deck for sleeping," he offers. Marco looks like he's going to have an aneurysm. "Don't worry," Mista waves his hand haphazardly, "I'm retired. Just have some unfinished business with someone that'll come here soon."

"Who."

Mista yawns and ignores the inquiry.

This time he has about thirty seconds of peace before talons come digging into his collarbone. Mista squawks, the blurry red of his eyes blinking away to orange feathers and purple eyes. The parrot pecks him. " _Mista?_ "

Mista blinks once, blinks twice. "Uh."

The parrot trills something ineligible before it opens it's beaks and—"Holy _shit_ ," the parrot squawks, "like, Mista Mista, you're totally the one who always played annoying songs, like," the parrot lowers it's voice, " _Pretty woman, walking down the street, pretty woman, the kind I like to meet_ — _that_ Mista!"

Mista's thoughts screech to a halt. That's—a song he hasn't heard in nineteen years. What the hell.

"Wait wait wait," Mista says, and the colors fall into place, the neon orange and the violet purple and—"how did you become a _parrot?_ "

Narancia shrieks delightedly and then literally like, unfolds into a full sized human. And Mista has seen zoan transformations but not from a _bird_. Huh. "Hey!" Narancia says, grinning wide, and _oh_. Oh oh oh.

The last time Mista saw Narancia he was skewered.

"Hey," Mista says, head still spinning a little. "Wait why are _you_ here?"

Narancia shrugs. "Well first I was fulling pranks—which, by the way, the parrot thing makes it so _good_. But anyway I'm looking for this one pirate crew and also for Fugo and the Whitebeards probably know how to find 'em, so."

"Oh," Mista says, "I'm waiting on GioGio. Giorno—fuck. Do you even remember him?"

Narancia squints his eyes a little. "...the blond kid? Dunno man, I died kinda quick."

Beside them, Marco throws his hands into the air, pulls out a tuft of hair, throws it at them, and says. "Oh fuck this. EVERYONE, BACK TO YOUR STATIONS. IZO!"

The Sixteenth Division Commander comes over, blinking at Narancia and Mista. "What."

"I think they're Giorno's friends," Marco tells Izo, and Izo nods like that explains everything. Which—well. If Giorno hasn't changed that much, it probably does.

Mista perks up and pulls himself into a sitting position. "You're gonna call GioGio? Thanks! Tell 'im to make sure Fugo _has_ to come!"

"Yeah!" Narancia adds, "Tell Fugo not to be a wimp!" Mista winces.

"Be kinda gentle," he says, because Mista _remembers_ how Fugo became.

Narancia gives him a weird look. "...Sure."

That's that. They wait.

-

It takes a week for Giorno and Fugo to arrive. They come in a small ship that's angled for speed. (Narancia would know. He's studied the composition of ships, after all.)

The small ship pulls up beside the Moby Dick and in just a moment they're both pulling themselves over the railing. Giorno draws the most attention, positioning himself in the front, gleaming bright gold in the sunlight, but Narancia focuses on Fugo. Fugo with warm brown hair and light purple eyes. He's..stiff, Narancia thinks, stiff and awkward looking. But less hard, less sharp-edged. He looks mellowed.

All of a sudden, Narancia aches deeply for his missed time.

(Mista explained what happened after his death. Talked about Passione and Italy and Giorno and Fugo. Talked about Trish going into the music industry. Talked about the eventual end of it all.)

Fugo looks a little overwhelmed. Narancia aches.

Fugo's gaze flits away to Mista, to where Mista and Giorno and hugging each other and laughing about something or other. Narancia shifts on his perch, remembers clearly Fugo on the steps of the San Giorgio Maggiore. Now isn't the time for hesitation.

"Yo," Narancia says, jumping down from where he'd settled in the masting.

Giorno startles bad and pivots around on his heels to stare. "...Narancia," he breathes, and Narancia waves in a way that hopefully isn't too awkward.

"Uh, hey," Narancia greets, and turns his focus back to Fugo. Fugo takes a small step back. Coward. And—Narancia isn't angry at Fugo, not really. It sucks that he died but there's no guarantee he would've survived if Fugo came, and Fugo could've died too. Fugo had the right not to come. Even if it was kind of an asshole move. And Narancia's forgiven him, if there was anything to forgive in the first place, but—

Narancia steps forward and punches Fugo right in the face. Then he crashes down onto the deck with him and says, "Nice to see you gain, asshole." And he actually means it.

"You mean it?" Fugo asks, eyes wet, and Narancia rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, I mean. I died. And it sucked. And not coming was kinda a dick move but whatever. Can't _really_ fault you that much. I kinda just..." he isn't sure. "wanna _not_ talk about it. Whatever. It was—" Narancia stops, blinks, snickers. "A _lifetime_ ago."

Fugo punches him in the face. Narancia just cackles.

Eventually they all tuck themselves into a little room below deck. It's lit by an oil lamp, the couches are deep and plushy.

"So," Giorno eventually says, "what've you two been doing?"

Mista shrugs. "Bounty hunting. I retired." A pause. The air is thick and the atmosphere heavy. "I'm not coming back." Mista says, eyes deep and dark and firm. "To anything. I love you guys but I settled down on a little spring island where the music is nice and the fruits are sweet, and I'm never leaving."

Narancia shifts a little uncomfortably. It's easy to imagine, Mista settled down with the flowers and the sun and relaxing for the rest of his days. He tries to see himself like that. He can't.

(Even an Emperor's crew is too slow, too full of nothing. Shanks' crew is nice and fun but going nowhere. Whitebeards crew is nice and kind but is nonetheless satisfied where they sit.)

"That's alright," Giorno says, unbearably earnest and kind. "I understand. You never wanted the mafia in the first place."

"I'll be there if you ever need me— _any_ of you _,_ " Mista tells them, and pulls something out of his pocket. He rips it into pieces and—

"A vivre card," Narancia says, eyes a little wide. He's never actually touched one before. "I'll give you all mine once I make one!"

Fugo looks over sharply. "You know how."

Narancia sticks out his tongue, straightens up, just a little. "Of course! I've been studying y'know! I'm not wasting this life."

Giorno and Fugo both wince. At the same time. Maybe it's a dating thing. (Are they dating or married? If they married in the _last_ life but not in this life are they still married?)

"Of course," Giorno smiles. "I wish you luck with whatever you decide to do."

"I'm gonna be a pirate," Narancia tells them, "I'm gonna change the world. Make music, do things. Fly." And it feels _right_. He grins. "Whole world's gonna be sing'in my name someday y'know! Gonna be like," he lowers his voice, makes a few haphazard gestures, " _man, y'know Narancia! Course I do! Who doesn't?_ "

"I believe it," Giorno says, true and sincere without a hint of deception, and Narancia looks at Fugo and Mista smugly.

"Hmph," Narancia says, and puffs up his wings. "Anyway. I'm leaving later today. I've got a pirate crew to catch, y'know!"

-

Ace looks at him long and hard before giving him a shred of Luffy's vivre card. But in the end he _does_ get it, so it's a win, really.

Narancia flies sixteen hours straight before spotting the Strawhat's ship. They're in the middle of basically no where, all gathered up on the deck. The sun is high and hot in the sky, and the clouds are cool on his feathers, it's windy, breezy, pleasant. Perfect.

Narancia dives sharply. He lands right on Luffy's shoulder, who peers twists his head at an angle that definitely shouldn't be possible and peers at him curiously for just a moment before his whole face lights up. "Parrot-guy!"

From across the deck 'Surgeon of Death' Trafalgar Law looks at them incredulously. "Mugiwara—"

"Yo!" Narancia greets, and unfolds into his hybrid form, toppling down onto the deck. "That offer still up?"

Luffy beams. "Of course! GUYS, WE NEED A PARTY TONIGHT!" The crew nods. Luffy tilts his head down, "Ah! By the way, what's your name?"

Trafalgar Law looks like he's going to have a heart attack.

Narancia laughs. "I'm Narancia!"

(His wings aren't made for flying, but that doesn't really matter. He got new ones.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHH! Okay. This really took a whole life of it's own. It was originally supposed to be 4k and just the Moby Dick part...but then I really thought "so Narancia is from Skypiea, is there anything interesting I can do with that?" and "wait, do I REALLY want Mista to be human?" and this became one of the most worldbuilding heavy ones lol.
> 
> Ah...ahahha. Narancia. I have never really written him before. I wonder if that shows? He's the hardest of the buccigang for me to write. I hope I didn't mess up there,. Especially cause he was kinda...the thread tying everything here together lol.
> 
> Anyhow. If you enjoyed, please leave a comment! I always enjoy feedback and constructive criticism is, as always, welcomed! So don't be shy! :)


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